unate people, to himself as their
representative, why should not this supposition be the natural one in
ver. 8 also?

The correctness of the view which we have given is further
strengthened, if we compare the similar lamentations of the prophets in
other passages, in all of which the same results will be found. In Jer.
xlviii. 31, _e.g._, "Therefore will I howl over Moab, and cry out over
all Moab, over the men of Kir-heres shall _he_ groan," the "he" in the
last clause sufficiently shows how the "I" in the two preceding
clauses, is to be understood,--especially if Is. xvi. 7, "Therefore
Moab howleth over Moab," be compared. But if this interpretation be
correct in Jeremiah, it must certainly be correct in Is. xv. 5 also:
"My heart crieth out over Moab,"--a passage which Jeremiah had in view;
and this so much the more, that in Is. xvi. 9-11--where a similar
lamentation for Moab occurs: "Therefore do I bewail as for Jazer for
the vine of Sibmah; I water thee with my tears, O Heshbon and
Elealeh.... Therefore my bowels sound like a harp for Moab, mine
inward parts for Kirhareseth"--it is quite unsuitable to think of a
lamentation of the prophet, which is expressive of his own grief. This
was seen by the Chaldee, who renders "_my_ bowels" by "bowels of the
Moabites,"--a view the correctness of which has been strikingly
demonstrated by _Vitringa_: "Although," he says, "the emotion of
compassion be by no means unsuitable in the prophet, yet no one will be
readily convinced that the prophet was so much concerned for the vines
of Sibmah and Jazer, and for the crops of the summer-fruits of a nation
hostile and opposed to the people of God, that it should have been for
him a cause for lamentation and wailing." In Is. xxi., in the prophecy
against Babylon, and in the lamentation in vers. 3, 4, "Therefore are
my loins filled with pain, pangs take hold upon me as the pangs of a
woman that travaileth, etc., the night of my pleasure has been turned
into terror," it is clearly shown in what sense such lamentations are
to be understood. By "the night of pleasure," we can, especially by a
comparison of Jeremiah, understand only the night of the capture of
Babylon, [Pg 430] in which the whole city was given up to drunkenness
and riot. But it is impossible that the prophet should say that this
night--the precursor of the long-desired day for Israel--had been
turned for him into terror. Either the whole lamentation is without any
meaning,